BY JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR and ASHZEL HACHERO
PRESIDENT Duterte has yet to decide on what he will do after his term ends in June 2022, Malacañang officials said yesterday.
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles and presidential spokesman Harry Roque said this was the clear message of the President when he said on Wednesday that running for vice president “is a good idea’ to enable him to act on some of his campaign promises, that it is good to retire after years in politics, and that he intends to keep his promise to support House majority leader Martin Romualdez if the lawmaker decides to run for vice president next year.
“I suppose what is clearest to us is that he has not made up his mind yet,” Nograles said in an interview with CNN Philippines.
The ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) in May issued a resolution urging Duterte to run for vice president in 2022, and gave him the right to choose who should run for president.
Romualdez is president of another party, the Lakas-CMD.
Nograles, a member of PDP-Laban, said regardless of what the President decides to do, the administration party will stand by him.
Duterte on Wednesday said he still has some unfinished business in government, like the problem on illegal drugs which he promised to solve during the 2016 campaign.
But he also said he would keep his promise to Romualdez, which he said he made in 2019 when he convinced Romualdez not to pursue the speakership position and just leave a term-sharing to Taguig Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano and now Speaker Alan Velasco.
Nograles said the President should be given time to reflect and decide.
He said the party highly respects Duterte, its chairman, who he said has has “the foresight, the experience, knowledge and the wherewithal.”
Duterte has until October to decide. Candidates will file their certificates of candidacy for next year’s polls in October.
Romualdez said he is open to a vice presidential run next year but he is also considering running for a lower post.
He thanked Duterte, saying the Chief Executive’s “support and words of encouragement will weigh heavily on whatever decision I have to make in October 2021.”
“Currently, I am keeping my options open with regard to the 2022 elections,” he said.
Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, PDP-Laban executive vice chairman, said Pacquiao will be a good choice as PDP-Laban standard bearer.
He said Pacquiao has many ideas and he has been explaining his ideas, the program of the government, his platform. He also said “many people” from various sectors and socio-economic classes have expressed support for Pacquiao in the polls.
Pimentel, in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel, also said Pacquiao should already declare his intention to run for the highest position in the land.
Pimentel also voiced worries of “old” PDP-Laban members that its new members might be pursuing possible “a secret agenda” as he raised concern over the premature holding of meetings such as the controversial May 31 national council meeting called by Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi.
He said long-standing members would not allow a PDP-Laban outsider to be the party’s standard bearer.
It can be recalled that there is a push for the tandem of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte and President Duterte to run for president and vice president in 2022.
The presidential daughter is not a PDP-Laban member.
He echoed Pacquiao’s statement that the May 31 meeting was “unauthorized and unlawful.”
Pacquiao earlier hit Cusi, the PDP-Laban vice chairman, for holding the meeting. But Malacañang said Duterte asked Cusi to hold the national assembly.
Ronwald Munsayac, PDP-Laban executive director, said Pacquiao will not attend the party’s July 17 national assembly because it is “unauthorized.”
In the May 31 meeting, which Pacquiao also skipped, party members decided to hold another assembly on July 17 and elect its officers.
Munsayac warned any resolution or decision to be made in the said assembly will be ignored.
Munsayac said out of the party’s more than 100,000 card-bearing members nationwide, only a little more than 5,000 are politicians, including President Duterte. Those who attended the May 31 meeting numbered only about 100. he also said.
He also said Pacquiao has the “overwhelming support” of the majority party members, including old-time members.
